neohoodoo: art for a forgotten tradition performance

SUNDAY

well, i blew it, couldnt have gone any other way actually
1st i got lost getting to long island city, made it about 10 minutes late

so i was off my game, then they put me in this bird outfit one of the artist had made
so here i am afraid to move hardly for fear of destroying a museum quality piece
they had me sign a paper to wear it, saying id be careful
i wish i had pictures, but i left my camera running to make it there

and then i had my cheat sheet taped to a piece of driftwood, was gon read it off the driftwood
i thought that was a nice touch, but when i came out i was in the groove, the musicians were playing

the moment was hot, i couldnt read some cheat sheet and what was pretty inevitable for the

1st time doing the piece from heart, i garbled it all up, forget some of my best lines and just basiclaly limped through

but the audience never realizes it, they complemented me on a good job and only me and terry
knew that  i had blown it badly - it was an extraordinary show though, terry is some kinda of ritual impressario, he had me dressed up in musuem wear and had his musicians wearing skicaps w/leopard hats so they looked like spirits, it was a magical moment, i gave him the money (most of it) he paid me back, told him i should have paid him for the experience

blew it, bummer

okay what else, starting to get excited about jaipur festival, you know what i like about going to these big literary conferences, that folk always dis me, treat me like im not a contender,

arthur flowers? never heard of him

so i go and i do my low profile observer thing and im beaming charisma so folk are curious but dismissive when i turn out to be a no name, or rather a low name - but then when it comes time for me to do my thing - panel, presentation, reading, whatever, i blow them all away

i always come strong, i always got something powerful to say and i always say it powerful - always

babajohn killens training: "the more important it is you have to say, the more obligated you are to say it well"

i always come strong, im always representing - and from that moment on
im the talk of the town, or the conference as the case may be

at least among the few who see

and on that note let me work on my presentation, literature and the global narrative
i always make sure my presentation is sharp, i always put the work in

saw steve cannon of tribes at the neohoodoo reading, it was good seeing him
steve was part of ishmaels neohoodoo posse back in the day - groove bang and jive around

is i believe the title of his underground novel, steve is a literary underground legend and founder of tribes
a lower east side literary insitution, steve cannon serious oldschool

hes gotten old and shaky now, still got what that scamp david earl jackson once called his seeing eye white girls
steve is blind and he has always had these lower east side literary gothics leading him around

always two, one on each side

steve and i go back -  he was once the moderator of a panel i was on at long ago medgar evers black writers conference and i was used to riffing my presentations then no notes, but steve took a couple of punches on me at that panel while introducing me and threw me off my game and everything just flew out of my head

i stuttered through some sentences and shut up and afterwards one of my fans told me she had come just to hear me speak and was very disappointed - and i swore then never again would i be unprepared

may be the only african american writer at conference, might be representing

im always very conscious when across the water and representing african americans, im always very
conscious of challenging the global perception of african americans by

coming strong with the substance and the dignity

they got this one day scheduled during my goodwill tour part thats all about african american lit, i give presentation that morning and perform midday, coming at them with both hands

american and indian academics talking about afroam lit, one segment compares african american lit and dalit lit so its some interesting dynamics happening here

thats the day im really looking forward to, they will be academicing all over african american lit and then
im going to show them what the cutting edge of afroam lit is all about - ima blow their indian minds

and i suspect that indian spiritual thing gon be receptive to a little hoodoo performance work

its an american embassy occasion, ima blow their minds too, did that at american ambassadors
residence in kenya once,did my africanamerican shaman thing at a mucky muck lawn party

made a lot of good contacts at that one, embassy follk, kenyan elites, ford foundation folk, you getting my drift

i started working on my presentation as soon as they sent me the title, its going to be primetime
i expect im going to have some followership in india after this is over

but while thats impo to me and my aspiration to be an international writer, i have to go deeper

otherwise its just entertainment, another negro singing and dancing, its the substance make it griotic
its what you do with the congregation once you put them into the palm of your hand

i have to get into a significance mode, determine what is the most significant use of this time/exerpience

what am i suppose to be learning from, how best can i use this to grow stronger as a person and as a writer, can i get some product out of this

representing and showboating (building a literary constituency) is cool but its significance that butters my literary bread

oxford got back to me about that race in the south piece, they changed the title from "on the nature of struggle in the age of obama and the geas of rickydoc" to 'raceman'

we got a different approach to this piece - but that title was perhaps
a little twisty - i had to say okay

but they were pleased with it, offered to pay me a nice little bit of change, didnt really change my
intent, and considering using it as the feature - that was a satisfying little victory

much of the same stuff you been seeing here on my blog dear regulators, but conventionalized somewhat for journal wear - i think of this blog as eventual product so its nice to get paid

as you know im somewhat of an unortho thinker and im pleased to get a little respect
from the industry - thats all i want just a little respect for what i do

cause i aint gon follow the party line, i never have, my artistic principle has always been ima do what i do
and force the literary world to respect me for it - due to the power the substance and the grace

i aint gon come to them, they got to come to me, this novel so narratively unortho dont know
if its good or bad, ive been going on faith for the last 8 years or so

but this is part of my hoodoo thing too, my sorcerors power is in believing in my reality over the consensus reality, magic is forcing reality to respond to my will

i dont adjust myself to reality, i make reality adjust to me, let me tell you that aint no easy task

very often reality wins - but such is the sorcerors burden

and that of the artist

i envision the world i see into a book, and then when that book is printed it become real in the world and
everytime somebody reads it or is moved by it it becomes that much more reality in the world

true reality - magic - thats why i love

the novel, thats why i love conjuring

that neohoodoo exhibit was all about art as ritual, i took some outlaw shots with my cell phone
of this extraordinary bottle tree one of the artist had made, the cataloque was too expensive

ima try it on amazon in a couple of months, im gone, need to work on novel

need to work on my presentation, need to pack, india is going to be interesting

im fronting the cool jaded cosmopolite but im actually quite excited

india no less, and my 1st time doing one of those american writer goodwill tours

im not only representing africaamericans, im representing america too - obamas america

old boy gon represent,

ima spread good will like some colored johnny appleseed

all my love

rdoc

THURSDAY

this is the info for that performance im supposed to be doing in the city saturday with terry adkins and the lone wolf recital corp at ps  1 contemporary art gallery  22-25  jackson ave in long island city at 2 pm

sound like my kinda exhibit, but me and terry almost fell out again

terry is an installation artist and he was doing a bessie smith exhibit here in syracuse and the curator, khelli willetts, buddy of mine, asked me to hit wth him, i said sure, i like khelli and i like doing collaborations with afrospiritual artists and it didnt feel like it was going to take a lot of my time - if i read it instead of trying to memorize/perform it

so i prepared a bessie smith piece, then day before hit terry sent me this carl van vechten quote he ask me to do and i told him ima african american literary man in the line of o killens, i dont do carl van vechten  - my mentor, john killens, would spin in his grave, it got a little tense for a moment but he got khelli to do it,

this time, 2 days before the hit he send me a baldwin quote talking about how bessie connected him with his niggerness and a list of about 40 nigger phrases he wanted me to chant, he tried to explain the symbolics but

i had to tell him i dont do niggerwork and wasnt going to be no niggerwork performances on my historical record, i told him my constituency wouldnt understand,

now im already stressed cause i been trying to memorize this bessie smith piece so i can actually perform it this time instead of read it like i did the last time, old performance artist like me hate to have to read something, no room for the magic to come down on me when im reading, when ive memorized it i can just let the spirit move me

it was a beautiful installation and terry threw down, and here i am reading my piece, i havent even looked at youtube cause the very idea embarass me, so im struggling with memorizing it this time and i know i will be stumbling and be riffing thru and i might fumble it but if im in a performance mode the power might come down on me - its always a gamble, reading is certain, performance is a gamble

i did a good rewrite, got this nice come on down bessie hook that might get hypnotic, might move the congregation - wish i had a month to work on it but i got 2 days and here i am in the middle of stressing when he send me the niggerlist, 2 days before the hit, i told him i dont do niggerwork man and i aint reading nothing, he got this witchdoctor coat from somewhere im supposed to be wearing, what kinda witchdoctor got to read his spell, got to read his invocation -  told him if thats a dealbreaker let me know

i would have been disappointed not to be part of the neohoodoo thing, its ishmeal and his novel mumbo jumbo and his book of poetry conjure that turned me onto literary hoodoo back when i was just a literary cub

one of the best hoodoo lines in african american lit came out of conjure

"on you i said, to the enemies of the soul"

another great hoodoo riff in conjure is:

just cause you cant see the stones
dont mean i aint building

i cant claim high hoodoo long as ishmael living, ishmael the man

terry say he didnt think i was going to do the niggerlist no way but he had to ask, terry like that shock and awe

but i dont do shock and awe, i do transformation - i just hope i dont fumble it, he will be taping it for youtube, i will post it when i can (assuming it aint awful)

wish me luck

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PS 1 Contemporary Art Center presents NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, an exhibition co-organized by The Menil Collection that brings together a multigenerational group of North, South, and Central American artists who address the value of ritual in the artistic process and the wider implications of spirituality in contemporary art. On view in the 2nd Floor Main Gallery, Project Rooms, and Corner Gallery.

Including some 50 works of sculpture, photography, assemblage, video, performance, and other media, NeoHooDoo asserts that the drive towards a spiritual practice is as relevant today in our burgeoning global society as it has ever been. Artists have long engaged with ritualism to enrich their work, drawing on the traditions of shamans, griots, and oral historians. NeoHooDoo “grew out of a desire to explore the multiple meanings of spirituality in contemporary art,” states P.S.1 Curatorial Advisor and Menil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Franklin Sirmans.

In the late 1960s poet Ishmael Reed adopted the 19th-century term “HooDoo,” referring to forms of religion and their practice in the New World to explore the idea of spiritual practice outside easily definable faiths or creeds and ritualism on contemporary works of literature and art. “Neo-HooDoo,” he writes in his 1972 collection of poetry, Conjure, “believes that every man is an artist and every artist a priest.” His seminal poems, “The Neo-HooDoo Manifesto” and “The Neo-HooDoo Aesthetic,” delve even deeper into this artistic practice to demonstrate its vitality as an international, multicultural aesthetic that embraces spiritual creativity and innovation.

From Vancouver to Havana, Guatemala City, and Bahia, the artists in NeoHooDoo began using ritualistic practice as a means to recover “lost” spirituality and to reexamine and reinterpret aspects of cultural heritage throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. Visual artists from across the Americas, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), José Bedia (b. 1959), Rebecca Belmore (b. 1960), Jimmie Durham (b. 1940), and Ana Mendieta (1948–1985) have freely combined disparate materials and mediums to create spaces where art and audience can interact unhindered by history or societal constraints. For these artists, ritual practice often emerges as a form of catharsis and political critique to approach issues such as race, gender, slavery, and colonization. This exhibition also will look at younger artists such as video artists Michael Joo and Regina José Galindo, who carry on many of these practices and themes decades later, reconfiguring the work of their predecessors into performative displays of ritual through film and gallery installations.

Challenging conceptions of “insider” and “outsider” art, the artists in the exhibition frequently create work using everyday objects that resonate both within the confines of a gallery or museum and among their own localized audiences who may or may not visit art institutions. Situating their work in a vernacular aesthetic, the meaning of the work fluctuates according to its context. Items such as light bulbs, wine bottles, artificial flowers, piano keys are repositioned in assemblages confronting themes of exploitation, genocide, and poverty. The 53 pieces of discarded waste paper comprising Jimmy Durham’s A Street-level Treatise on Money and Work are brought to the center of a dialogue on the destruction of native cultures and Dario Robleto addresses American notions of manifest destiny in Deep Down I Don’t Believe in Hymns by taking a military-issued blanket and “infesting” it with hand-ground dust made from vinyl recordings of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” and Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.”

--------------------------------
sound like my kinda hit, sound like
something the old hoodoo shaman

spose to be presiding over

all my love

rdoc

Comments

[BuffaloSoldier]

bUT THEY HAD TO KEEP ON FIGHTING BuffaloSoldier salutes the Ancestors. Whew! Where to begin? Let's start with SoulDoctor's GoodMedicine in the form of a HardCrit for the novel. Combining it
with Putnam's HardCrit and will soon dive into the overhaul. Now, thoughts on the Inaug and the
ascension of the--not Halfrican, not MauMau/Kikiyu/Masai KenyaStyle, not postracial Biracial,
not AfricanAmerican--LionKing. Yesterday, he made it CLEAR of his identity when he said," Large
nations and small villages, like the one where my father was born...Right there, he distanced him
self from BlackAmerican history, even as he embraced the seriousness of that history and its
impact on him. How? "...I stand here in a place where 60 years ago I would not have been
served in a restuarant...my father and mother's marriage at the time of my birth was still
illegal in places in this country...(Boy, did he give the gays for gay marriage an opening
with that one)..." Wow! Jesse Holland ( Black Men Built The Capitol) says we've come full
circle. Not quite, Jesse. Listen to the voice of Houston Rockets Center Motumbo. "We have
a son of an African man, not from a second or third Generation, from the first generation. That
brings me so much joy and so much pride." Hmmmn. second and third generation...Hey, that's me!
How does Wesley Snipes feel? Tim Geithner, Obama's guy to heal the Treasury Department, failed
to pay taxes. How about this? Darth Cheney pulled a back muscle while moving boxes on his way out.
Did he let the door him hit him? Sunday, I saw people struggle for relevance in light of the
LionKing's ascension. Like it is aired a program called "Is President Obama good for Black People?"
Man, I didn't laugh out loud. (That came later) All of those PanAfricanists and others didn't
really seem what to make of this. Malik Zulu asked how dare the question even be raised. As a point, he cited the Crips and the Bloods being moved to change things in light of the ascension.
In fairness he did mention his grandparents struggle in the Civil Rights Struggle and how this was
good for them. Malik, LionKing would not hesitate to take you on if he figured you were in his way.
Ask Alice Palmer. Remember, in Chicago, it was LionKing VS BlackPanther. Yes, Bobby Rush, the same
Brother who would surely have been assainated along with Fred Hampton and Mark Clark that cold
December morning. BlackPeople showed their adulthood by giving John McCain a standing ovation at the Cardozo High School auditorium. He recieved louder cheers than Marion Berry. Now I couldn't
stop laughing yesterday. A Brother on the bus, judging by the bowtie and suit possibly a five
per center said, "Brothers and Sisters, this is the official beginning of the Black Man's Five
Thousand Years of Black Rule."
A guy in the back said, "Obama is the anti-Christ!"
Bowtie said, "Yeah, maybe that too."
Folks, I can't make this stuff up.
Sobering thought for all of those who are now saying, "Yes, we can!" This is in the neighborhood
of it's more than a notion/slogan.
The Education Equality Project says white high school seniors are on average four years ahead of Black Students and the gap in reading skills is growing. 78% of white students graduated high school
Just 55%of Blacks and 53% of Lations do.
That's why the ovation for McCain. He says he's diving right in to help fix things.
Last thought, at least for now, During JFK's parade,the coast guard passed and he didn't see
one Black face. He turned to an aide and said, "Fix it!"
I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this message.

[BuffaloSoldier]

IF THEY WANTED TO BE FREE BuffaloSoldier salutes PanAfrica. Whoops. I think a clarification is in order. I just read my previous Post, with a message I approved of, and came away with the impression BuffaloSoldier was
knocking PanAfricanism. Far from it. It is still one of the most sobering
philosophies to come out of the continent. I consider the continent AfricaEast, while where we are is AfricaWest. Yes, that includes South
America and the West Indies. One Brother even asked me what if Colin
Powell, the Jamaican, had run and won. That's here, Brother. His people
came from either Prison camps or Slavery. A special Black Man was born
of that experience. So, Sunday, I was smirking because it seemed they
were fumbling for meaning, for purpose. For the BuffaloSoldier,
the goals never really included ascension to the White House. I first
came in contact with PanAfricanism in a Black Power conference in Philly
in 1968. Not once, among adopted platforms, was it resolved that it was
an imperitive to elect a BlackPresident. And outside those doors, that
thought was in the air. Inside, we were talking about 1% of the population
controlling 99% of the wealth. I think that dynamic is still in place
right now on 1/21/09. If there are other goals, we need another conference.
But we certainly don't need to look like Langston Hughes Simple asking
"Now what?"
I'm BuffaloSoldier and I approve this clarification